VILLAGE HALL IS SOLD AGAIN—Ancient headquarters of South Dedham and Norwood business, social, and civic life purchased by the Standard Auto Gear Company from Winslow Bros. & Smith. Building erected in 1860 by South Dedham Hall company and later sold to Orient Lodge of Masons as a headquarters and investment project. Built on present site of Folan Block. (Surette Photo)
By WIN EVERETT
Another one of Norwood’s few remaining South Dedham business structures has again changed hands. It is the old village hall, on Broadway at Nahatan Street. The purchaser is the Standard Auto Gear company of Quincy, one of whose stores conducts a well-established business at 115 Central Street, Norwood.
Yesterday Walter J. Glynn, local manager of the Standard Auto Gear Company store, told a Messenger reporter that his firm has not as yet made anj’ definite plans for the use of the hall property. It Is possible that they will eventually build a new and modern business home for automotive gear of all kinds. The old building may or may not be retained. Whatever Is done, he says, will be a real asset to that section of the business center.
The news value of this sale, aside from calling attention to the rapid business development of Broadway, is the jog which it must give the memory of many Norwood people who once thought that Village Hall was a pretty big and important building. And so it was— for little So. Dedham and Norwood. In fact, from its dedication ball on Thanksgiving night, November 29, 1860, to the summer of 1915 it was the heart and center of the town’s civic and social life. And you can include the churches to that since it was the annual scene of their fairs and shows. Culture also is In the picture for where else could a famous lecturer deliver his pearls of wisdom except on the grimy stage of that old auditorium?
The proof that Village Hall still has a warm spot in the hearts of many Norwood people who are not so old, is seen in the following little story. William McNought of East Walpole, the wholesale paper merchant and realtor, has been flirting with the idea of buying the old place. He owns the old South Dedham Hotel property across Nahatan Street and he figured that the ancient hall would give him a nice pair of antiques.
He told the writer that the day he made his first inspection of Village Hall,” the inside of which he had not seen for many years, he stood at the foot of the long flight of stairs which used to lead from the street to the second-floor auditorium.
“I stood with my hand on the old mahogany newel post in that silent hallway and looked up the familiar stairs. Then it came back to me. I was a very small boy. I did not have a penny in my pocket and no chance of putting one there. Up in the hall that afternoon they were having some sort of a magic lantern show for the school children. The admission was five cents. Oh, gee! How I longed to go to that show! No, there was no kindly old gentleman who came along and gave me a nickel. I just didn’t attend. How little I realized that someday fate would put me in the very same spot and that I would be debating if it would be wise to invest around 535,000 for the entire plant. Life’s an odd thing, isn’t it?”
It is safe to say that you could ask any Norwood-born citizen who is as old or older than Bill McNought what he remembers about Village Hall and you would get at least one little human interest story.
So it is no use in trying to write the entire history of this shabby old building. Besides it has been written in the past in many ways.
The building of Norwood’s first large business block and hall on the site of the present Folan block on Washington Street, was a courageous and public-spirited investment made in 1856 and 1860 by Lyman Smith, Joseph Day, and probably George E. Talbot, who was in on almost every project or that era. Probably there were others in this South Dedham Hall company. Unless you can visualize our small, dried-up, and hitherto unprogressive village of the 1850s, rent by religious bickerings and feuds, you cannot fairly estimate the nerve it required to erect a three-story building covering 15,222 square feet which was to be rented for business and hall purposes. Nevertheless, Tyler Thayer and his men carefully erected it on land which had belonged to George D. Guild and Joel M. Baker The original building was without the rear “El” which was added later, by Mr. Thayer.
The hall and building was dedicated that Thanksgiving night with the most elaborate and largest dance ever held up to that time in South Dedham. It was top drawer. Never had such dresses and jewels been flaunted in the little burg! But it was like the famous ball held the night before Waterloo in Brussels. South Dedham stood on the edge of a volcano. Within a few weeks there was a sign slapped on the door of a recruiting station in the left-hand lower corner of the present hall building where the Messenger used to be published. The poster asked for volunteers to fight the southern rebels. For four years South Dedham parents came fearfully each day to look at that bulletin board where the poster was in order to see if the name of their dear ones was in either the “Dead” or “Wounded” section.
After the war the steady tenants settled down on the first floor of Village Hall. They were “Pod” Gay’s paper store where the recruiting station had been. Next to it was Moses Webbs grocery store, later Harvey Boyden’s. His neighbor to the right was u. W. Bige- low’s dry goods store It stayed right there for fifty years until the day they moved the building away from Village Square It was the typical country dry goods “emporium.” Excellent goods, fair prices and friendly service always existed in that store, as they did in all the others in that row.
A brief history of ownership of the property is as follows. The South Dedham Hall Company sold it to Orient Lodge of Masons, who had their hall in the addition from about I860 to that date they dedicated their present building. At George F. Willett’s interests, he moved it down to its present site on Broadway and turned its management over to the American Felt Company, a subsidiary corporation. The Felt Company sold the building to Winslow Bros. & Smith about 1940. who needed it for storage space. Now the tannery has sold it to the Standard Auto Gear interests.
(All articles originally published in the Norwood Messenger)
